"Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom" - Thomas Carlyle
The work of Wylde Oake Artistry explores and questions our human perception of the fungal kingdom through its situating often within, but not exclusively,the Disrupted Realism movement. The distractions and disruption of contemporary life means peace is found within a quest to discover the mycological secrets of the woodland floors as well as the urban jungles in which so many of us now live. The artist's approach blends research, personal experience and artistic practice within a multidimensional exploration of the intra-actions between the human and non-human fungal world. Moreover, the work is also about how we can look towards a Mycocenic future in which we become companion species by the promotion of conversations and the reflection on the larger, intricate systems that sustain life on Earth. Furthermore, the artistic process, which is grounded in the physical interactions and insights, enables the artist herself to consider the work in the present, in the moment, as to how it may also looks to speak and explore how we can become protectors of, rather than antagonists towards the fungal kingdom and its wider eco-systems whilst removing the first question, so often asked, of 'is it edible?' and instead inserting the words 'what is it and what can we do for it?'
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Who is the Artist?
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What drives her?
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To answer the question maybe I need to go back to childhood ... and here for once I will go back to my old practice of using a 1000 words when 10 will do but do so as this is me .... this is who I am ....with the words betraying the shyness and introverted nature of my neurodivergence.
"I've always thought fairies are like mushrooms, you trip over them when you're not thinking about them, but they're hard to spot when you're searching for them." Jo Walton
A random quote that has no purpose other than I just like it!
I digress already .... the artist/creative force and mushroom lover behind WOA is Jane, aka me - someone who is also a confessed nemophilist and thalassophile! My first memories of fungi were in the fields next door to our home as my father demonstrated the delights of a giant puffball mushroom or him gathering huge field mushrooms to have for dinner .... despite me being the only one who utterly despise eating them .... but tastes happily change as now ...
"A meal without mushrooms is like a day without rain." John Cage
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My first interaction with an artist came before I even knew what a mushroom was as Robert Lenkiewicz from my hometown of Plymouth used to draw the local townspeople for pin money to pay for his artistic materials. I was actually scared of his scraggly beard and rough features but aged 7 I announced I wanted to be an artist when I grew up so clearly am impression was made.
Fast-foward 40+ years I obtained a mid-life BA Hons in Textiles in 2021 which was swiftly followed with an MA in Fine Art in 2023 - both distant learning through the University for the Creative Arts. The MA in particular enabled investigations, and fabulously playful moments, into more diverse artistic media whether collage, acrylic paints, pen and ink and watercolour and hence after a lifetime of stitch, literally learnt at my mothers knee, I found my artistic home ....
.... that of pastels which gave me the textural hands-on element that I loved about textiles but with an immediacy and adaptability within the art work that I craved.
"Art is a line around your thoughts" - Gustave Klimt
Those pastels and pencils truly enabled the transference of concepts, of thoughts, of the personal experience and ongoing research, that continues to be at the very core of my artistic practice, on to paper. But as Henry Moore said "To be an artist is to believe in life" and mushrooms are ultimately the great regenerators of life itself.
The mushrooms though had made their appears in the latter stages of the BA but as metaphors for illness and the beauty of aging but the indepth nature of post-graduate research generated a fascination with our human-fungal connections and interactions that continues to be my specialist theme. At the very heart of the work is a desire to create dialogue around the human vs nature continuum as:
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“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.” – Keith Haring
My work is now in private collections throughout the UK, has been featured in Derbyshire Life, has been longlisted for Artist of the Year with the Visual Artist Association and in the Illustration & Drawing category in the Visual Art Open in 2025. Additionally I have exhibited in solo and group shows in the UK and online.
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Oh and I also love cats ....
so meet past and present Cat Executive Officers of WOA - Meeko and Milo
